


baby, it's okay (it's buzzcut season anyway)

by figure8



Series: Buzzcut Season [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Grief, M/M, MCD is not Stiles or Derek, Open/happy ending, canonical character deaths, wow guys loads of dead people in this damn fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2013-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-31 14:52:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1032982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/figure8/pseuds/figure8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What doesn't kill you kills your best friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	baby, it's okay (it's buzzcut season anyway)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story about mourning. It's something I had to write after losing someone very dear to me, and it's very grief-heavy because I was in a terrible place and had to spit the darkness out somewhere. Surprisingly, I don't think it came out ~~that~~ angsty, but if the subject is sensitive to you you might want to skip it, because it still basically is almost 3k words on death and grief and guilt. (Also, it's never described, but Stiles has a panic attack at one point.) If I need to tag something, please let me know?  
> Huge thank you to my darling Katy for the beta. 
> 
> Title from Lorde's Buzzcut Season. Part of a series but can absolutely stand alone.

i.

 

There’s a Before, and an After.

Some things don’t change. Stiles still gets up in the morning and puts on his clothes; eats a quick breakfast before leaving for school. He still goes grocery shopping on Thursdays, and he’s still pretty bad at Lacrosse. Some things do change, like the detour he’s not taking anymore after class in the evening or the empty spot next to his Jeep in the parking lot or Melissa’s smile, only a distant memory now. Some things stay the same even if they shouldn’t –Thanksgiving and Christmas and the SATs– because the world is unjust and stupid. Some things lose all meaning –Lydia’s insolent beauty, video games, movie nights and curly fries. Some things are, as one would say, a surprise –Derek’s presence at the funeral, black suit and red, puffy eyes; fists clenched and rage visible in the green of his irises.

Then there's the pain nested deep inside Stiles’ lungs; his own personal terminal illness, permanent like a tattoo.

 

ii.

 

Isaac lets his body slide all along the length of the wall, sits on the floor and buries his face in his hands. He cries silently, jaw pressed and body rigid, realization irradiating his organism slowly.

“I don’t know what to do,” he whispers. “I was right next to him, it’s my fault, it’s my fault…”

Allison sobs, securely trapped in Lydia’s arms. These are girly, bittersweet tears; and her face is still sharply beautiful but the light inside her eyes is gone.

Derek doesn’t say a word. He glances back at the grave one last time and it looks like he wants to speak, but his expression is closed-off and angry. He leaves town again on the same night. Disappears God-knows-where. Stiles doesn’t want to know, doesn’t really care.

He still stares at his window sometimes, waiting for something.

Late at night, when his dreams turn black, he breathes in and laughs sourly because they all bury themselves under layers and layers of guilt when they all know, deep down, that he’s the only one responsible for everything that happened.

 

iii.

 

What’s the most surprising is that it’s actually _hard_. Waking up demands a superhuman effort. Communication with other living souls is an Olympic event. Trying to breathe properly gives him panicked hiccups. It’s hard, and it shouldn’t, because it’s not his first time. He’s already lost his mother and his childhood. He can still remember perfectly the everlasting nights of bone-piercing sadness and nightmares, and the bottles his father emptied just for a few hours free from memories of her. He remembers the breathtaking pain and the darkness that closes around you like a box, the monster chewing slowly on his insides. He remembers healing, he remembers the open wounds turning into scars.

What doesn’t kill you is supposed to make you strong.

Truth is, it’s like falling once again on the same injuries and opening all your stitches.

 

iv.

 

It’s a table for eight. Stiles sits at his usual spot, Lydia opposite to him. Allison takes the chair right next to her, and Isaac follows. They eat in silence, never talk, their gazes sometimes sliding to the four vacant seats. Nobody will ask them to join their table. Nobody would _dare_.

Isaac punched the last person who tried to sit at Erica’s desk, and Stiles had a panic attack when someone approached the one in front of him in their Economics class.

There are rumors, whispers when they cross the hall, just the four of them. They look like penguins on an iceberg, standing the closest possible to each other, as if they were trying to protect themselves from this frozen world with the warmth provided by human contact.

 

v.

 

“Stiles, you cannot keep on going like that. I know it hurts, kiddo, believe me. But you can’t let yourself _rot_ in your pain. He wouldn’t want that.”

Stiles wants to scream that everybody should shut the hell up, because nobody can speak for him. He’s _gone_.

 

vi.

 

Derek comes in through his window almost two months after the funeral. He’s wearing a white t-shirt with blood all over it. For the first time in sixty days, Stiles finds a little bit of strength in him, and he uses it to murmur furiously. There’s a long gash going all the way from where his throat meets his jawline to his collarbone, and it’s still leaking red. Derek lowers his head and waits patiently, and the scene seems unreal for a millisecond. Then Stiles sighs and gets out of bed, tiptoes to the bathroom and comes back with a wet towel he softly presses to the wound. The werewolf winces.

“They’re dead,” he finally says.

Stiles had guessed, but it’s still different to hear it. He furtively wonders if feeling relieved makes him a bad person. He takes an old Lacrosse jersey from his drawer and throws it at Derek, and then goes back to his bed and pushes himself against the wall, making room for a second person. He expects Derek to protest, but the older man just climbs into it without arguing. They fall asleep quickly, their breathings the only sound in the bedroom.

In the morning, of course, Stiles wakes up alone. But there’s a small piece of paper sitting gloriously on his desk, obviously torn off from one of his notebooks. **_For what it’s worth, I do trust you._** The writing is pretty; round, strong letters. It’s almost funny. Stiles rereads the word **_trust_** several times and his mind flashes back to that night that seems to have occurred a thousand years ago. A pool, a monster, and a too-heavy body clinging to his; fake waves washing over them and strength leaving his organism gradually. _And a strong grip taking them out of the water._

Stiles falls on the floor and bites his hand until it bleeds, and doesn’t go to school.

 

vii.

 

Isaac brings flowers to the graveyard every week. He puts a red rose on Erica’s grave, a lilac on his father’s, a different bouquet each time on Scott’s tomb. He sits cross-legged next to his mother’s and tells her about his day. He never goes to the military cemetery. Camden hated flowers anyway.

Stiles sometimes pays a visit to that spot where the tombstone says _Claudia Stilinski_. He always has a bottle of Jack with him, and toasts to their long-lost happiness.

 

viii.

 

His father grimaces the first time Derek Hale’s Camaro appears in front of their house. He doesn’t the next ten times. Or the twenty after that.  
  
The day it’s a motorcycle instead, the Sheriff looks like he wants to say something but refrains himself. He just observes his son put on the helmet Hale gives him with a sad smile, and sighs when he clings to the other man’s leather jacket.

“Got a new toy?” Stiles asks after their first ride. He feels a bit giddy with adrenaline, doesn’t know yet if he likes it or not.

“Speed helps,” Derek shrugs.

Stiles frowns. “You can run faster than this thing.” 

“Yeah, but you can’t.”

 

ix.

 

“I loved him, you know. I’m bad at this, I’m bad at– showing people I care about them. But when I called us brothers, I wasn’t lying.”

“I know. It took me quite a long time to _get it_ , because you don’t really help with your gangster attitude. Doesn’t really surprise me that dad still looks like he swallowed a lemon when he knows I’m going out to see you. Anyway. I know. I had time to think, and I remembered a lot of small details. Like that time after the rave, when we were running after Jackson. You were so panicked when you thought he was going to die. And I understand, now. Why you killed Peter the first time.”

Derek nods, and they never talk about it again.

 

x.

 

The kiss comes naturally. They’re standing on Stiles’ porch, right after one of their motorcycle rides. Before the usual _See you tomorrow_ passes Stiles’ lips, Derek presses his mouth to his. It’s soft and sweet, nothing more than a caress. For a second, Stiles suddenly breathes freely and marvels, disoriented. Why did everything feel so painful when happiness is _right there_? Then realization hits him like a rocket, leaving him breathless and choking. He can’t call Scott to tell him about it afterwards. The phone will just ring and ring and ring and his best friend is _not going to answer._ He violently pushes Derek away and the werewolf trips, because he wasn’t expecting it, but Stiles doesn’t look back. He just slams the door behind him and swears he’s fine when his dad asks him what’s wrong.

 

xi.

 

“Stiles, it almost pains me to say it, but I think you should start seeing Derek again.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, dad.”

“Son. You were doing so much better. You were _smiling_.”

“I said I don’t want to–”

“You’re my kid,” his father cuts him off. “I don’t understand why it has to be _him_ , but I don’t care. I want you happy.”

“I’m gay,” Stiles tries, an edge of despair in his voice.

His dad stares at him like he’s grown two additional heads.

“I _know_. I don’t see what it has to do with–”

“Derek is too,” he stops him, even if it’s certainly not true. Maybe it’s just Stiles. Or maybe he also likes guys, Stiles doesn’t really care.

“I _know_ ,” his father repeats, frowning. “Even if I wasn’t a cop, it wasn’t that hard to guess what was happening between you two.”

“It doesn’t bother you.” It’s not a question.

“Is that what has you worried? No, it doesn’t bother me. Maybe ideally, I would have hoped for someone younger or less dangerous or, heaven forbid, _human_. But I trust you, and I just want you to be okay.”

The word trust is just too much. It has Stiles standing up abruptly, almost knocking his chair over. He leaves the house without a word. The sheriff watches him climb into his Jeep and pours himself a glass of Whiskey.

 

xii.

 

The house is still in ruins. Stiles has no idea of how Derek got it back from the County, but he's been living there since he got back. _Since Scott died_. It's weird, how it's easy to say it now. Nothing else got easier, but saying the words seems normal, it doesn't has him choking anymore.

"It's my fault," he says without preamble. "I dragged him into the woods that night two years ago. It doesn't really matter, what happened after. Ultimately, it's still my fault in the end."

There's a long silence following his last sentence, but then the stairs make that small cracking noise and Derek appears in front of him like he's a fucking sorcerer. He's just wearing jeans; no shirt, barefoot, three fresh new scars on his forearm.

"I killed my family," he answers. "I was fifteen, I fell in love with a woman and I killed my family."

It's not really a shock, because Stiles is not stupid and had guessed a long time ago, but it's still very unsettling hearing Derek admit it out loud.

"So you know, Stiles, we can see it that way. You don't deserve to go on because you killed Scott, and I don't deserve to live because I burned eleven people alive. It doesn't fucking matter, does it? That you weren't the one with the sword and I wasn't the one with the match and the gasoline? We still killed them. No happy ending for us." There’s an unhappy laugh and his voice breaks a little, almost unperceivable. "We're going to pay for it all, our, lives."

"Derek, I..."

"You know," he continues. "I used to actually really think like this."

"What changed?"

Stiles hates that his tone is so hopeful, but he realizes he needs this _so much_. Someone to tell him he's wrong. Someone to whisper in his ear, _it wasn't your fault. It's okay, you have the right to hurt. You can let the weight of guilt go, now._

"You," Derek tells him. Stiles sucks in a breath. "It was so easy to be blind when I was the only one involved. I hated myself just enough. But as soon as it was not about me, it became obvious, you know? It's such _bullshit_. Stiles, we did some fucked up shit. We did. But that's how life _is_. You were stupid and irresponsible and yeah. Yeah, maybe things would have been different if you hadn't looked for my sister's body that night. Maybe they wouldn't have. I don't know. I can't know. You can't know. That's not how life goes. But there's a difference between your mistakes and the fucking bastard who cut Scott in half. There's a fucking difference, Stiles, you have to _understand_. There's a difference between me and Kate. I never wanted this. I loved them, I..." he stutters. "It matters. It matters that I would give everything, that I would give up my _life_ in a heartbeat to have them back here and safe. It matters that you still can't breathe right when you think of him."

Stiles hiccups. There are so many tears in his eyes he can't even see properly anymore. Derek is just a blurry figure and words that cut like a sharp knife, digging into his bones.

"I wanna be angry," he lets out. "I wanna get freaking _mad_ , I want to feel the need to break everything. I want to be like Allison and just shoot things; or like Isaac, trying to be okay, living with it. Hell, I wanna be like you. Hating the whole universe. But I just can't move, Derek, I can't _move_."

He feels so numb. The world is so empty when the space right next to him isn't filled.

Derek grabs his helmet from the table beside him and throws it at him. He catches it by pure miracle.

"Let's go get some adrenaline," he tells him.

 

xiii.

 

Scott is not standing at his right and Scott never laughs at his jokes. Scott doesn’t score during Lacrosse games and Scott isn’t trying to win Allison back. Scott doesn’t call him the evenings Melissa works the night shift. Scott doesn’t tease him when Derek picks him up from school. Stiles texts him the day he realizes he’s in love and Scott never texts him back. Scott doesn’t graduate, and they don’t go to college together. Scott isn’t with him the night a guy calls him a faggot and beats him up. Scott doesn’t get him drunk when he and Derek have their first huge fight and he leaves the house, leaves Stiles alone with their furniture and the cold dinner they never touched. Scott won’t be his son’s godfather and won’t be his best man. Scott will never be a vet and Scott won’t marry Allison.

 

xiv.

 

It’s 3 AM and the house is silent. In the room right next to theirs, the one they painted yellow because _gender normative colors are for jerks, Derek_ , Scotty is sleeping soundly, dead tired after his first day of kindergarten. Stiles yawns, moves around awkwardly in order to be able to stretch his arms without throwing Derek out of their bed. Derek feels it anyway because he’s always been a light sleeper, and groans groggily. He looks like a kitten, his hair sticking out in different directions. Stiles almost giggles and closes his eyes, already drifting back to sleep. He can feel Derek shift next to him. The werewolf kisses the top of his head, and whispers:

“Hey, you okay?”

It takes Stiles a second to answer, but what is amazing is that it’s _true_ , and he knows he has to cherish it.

“Yeah,” he breathes. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [tumblr](http://haleinski.co.vu)? I almost never bite.


End file.
